Speaker 1: You're listening to a CNA podcast.
Speaker 1: Hi, it's Tiffany and Gerald on the Work It podcast. Now,
Speaker 1: a little story here, about 6 years ago, I had
Speaker 1: to clean up my resume because I was looking for
Speaker 1: a new job. At that time, I hadn't touched it
Speaker 1: in 8 years. So what did I do? I turned
Speaker 1: to Google for help. Now this is what Google said
Speaker 1: to me, List your achievements from most recent and work
Speaker 1: bad work.
Speaker 1: Highlighting any recommendations or awards you have won along the way,
Speaker 1: then put your education background and list some skills you have,
Speaker 1: which may be suitable for the job you are applying for.
Speaker 1: Now by the time I was done, it was almost
Speaker 1: 3 pages long because everything felt important to me. OK,
Speaker 1: I know this is where you will be shaking your
Speaker 1: head at me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think firstly, you have GPT today. It's
Speaker 1: a lot easier now it's a lot easier, but I
Speaker 1: think when it comes to resume writing, right, I think
Speaker 1: everyone can agree that they feel that their resume is
Speaker 1: always a work in progress. They don't feel that they
Speaker 1: have the perfect resume. There's always something to add, update,
Speaker 1: enhance in our resume, where we want to apply for jobs, right?
Speaker 1: So I think
Speaker 1: Most people want to put everything that they have inside,
Speaker 1: and that's why you hit 3 pages or more very quickly.
Speaker 1: There's an art actually and a bit of science or
Speaker 1: as to how we should tailor our resumes a bit
Speaker 1: better so that it appeals to the recruiters, hiring companies
Speaker 1: to attract them to take a second look at what
Speaker 1: you've written on your resume and then call you in
Speaker 1: for an interview. I know this is something that's really
Speaker 1: on the top of many people's minds, people who are
Speaker 1: job-seeking or even maybe not job-seeking as well. How do
Speaker 1: you write?
Speaker 1: A good resume and what to look out for. So
Speaker 1: I call in the big shot today, right? I'm really happy.
Speaker 1: We have a Lim Zirong, master professionals at the Institute
Speaker 1: of HR Professionals to walk us through this thing about
Speaker 1: resumes and to give us some tips and hacks. Welcome, Zong. Hi,
Speaker 2: thank you. Thanks for having me. So
Speaker 1: Zong, give me a ballpark, right? How many resumes have
Speaker 1: you seen so far in your career and in percentage terms,
Speaker 1: how many do you think are well written? Wow,
Speaker 2: how many?
Speaker 2: Over hundreds or close to 1000. I mean, because I've
Speaker 2: worked in HR for close to 19 years by now,
Speaker 2: and I would say,
Speaker 1: how many are actually well written?
Speaker 2: I like
Speaker 2: to be cautiously optimistic, so more than half would be
Speaker 2: well written.
Speaker 1: But these
Speaker 1: good ones, are they already like they're fresh from the
Speaker 1: job portals or are they like already pre-screened? Oh, you
Speaker 1: mean there's a difference? Yeah, the ATS.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, OK, application software.
Speaker 2: So I would say in the earlier part of my career,
Speaker 2: I will screen every resume myself though now in the
Speaker 2: second part, I do have a team that helps me
Speaker 2: to pre-screen.
Speaker 1: Now
Speaker 1: that you have heard what I did in the introduction,
Speaker 1: what's the good thing I did and what's the bad
Speaker 1: thing I
Speaker 1: did?
Speaker 2: I think first of all I want to start by
Speaker 2: saying a lot of people fall into the pitfall where, oh,
Speaker 2: now I want to look for a job, I want
Speaker 2: to update my resume and then they just build on.
Speaker 2: What they have previously updated in the past. Like personally,
Speaker 2: I was, I started my career in Temasek, then I
Speaker 2: will have a resume that wrote Temasek, then I moved
Speaker 2: on to Unilever. I put on my resume experience on Unilever,
Speaker 2: and then then I keep building on and on. But
Speaker 2: the truth is when we build on our resumes, we
Speaker 2: should also revisit the old parts and maybe refine it
Speaker 2: or even delete it or make it shorter rather than
Speaker 2: to take a very lazy.
Speaker 2: approach like a Lego where you stack, stack, stack and
Speaker 2: and now you have your 3-page or your 4-page
Speaker 1: resume. Yeah, yeah, OK, OK. So I should actually go
Speaker 1: back and then relook at some parts and maybe shorten
Speaker 1: shorten some things, maybe even delete some things,
Speaker 2: right? Especially if some are highly operational and especially if
Speaker 2: you're applying for a much more senior role already. Let's
Speaker 2: say you're applying for a director role after 15 years.
Speaker 2: South Korea. You don't need to use to do campus
Speaker 2: recruitment coordinating the logistics with the hotel. Yeah, you should
Speaker 2: delete that
Speaker 1: by now. OK, OK, that's a good tip.
Speaker 2: Can I give another tip too? You know sometimes people
Speaker 2: put their contact details under header and footer. So their name,
Speaker 2: their email address, their mobile number, and unfortunately, when they
Speaker 2: go through ATS, the application tracking system.
Speaker 2: Their contact details may not be captured because it's in
Speaker 2: the header field. So always put your contact details in
Speaker 2: the body of your resume. In the header, it becomes
Speaker 2: very small and tiny and that might not be captured.
Speaker 2: Then if you got shortlisted, the ATS don't even have
Speaker 2: the contact details to contact you.
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, I didn't know that as your resume
Speaker 1: is incomplete.
Speaker 1: But why, why would people want to put their contact
Speaker 1: details in the header is because they want to space
Speaker 1: is one thing. They also want it to be repeated
Speaker 1: on every page. They want it to be more visible,
Speaker 1: but actually on the contrary, if software is involved, right,
Speaker 1: it could be invisible. Wow, that's like, OK, my mind
Speaker 1: is a little bit blown right now. I would probably
Speaker 1: have done and put it in the header because I
Speaker 1: want to maximize the page space, right, right? OK, so.
Speaker 1: Walk us through very quickly the entire process of recruitment
Speaker 1: from the time our resume is submitted into the job portal.
Speaker 2: When it's in the job portal, then progressive company would
Speaker 2: have certain form of screening by picking up keywords first. Hence,
Speaker 2: that's why I advise job seekers to always include reasonable keywords.
Speaker 2: Don't include very bombastic one where, you know, you inflate
Speaker 2: your title so big that it's
Speaker 2: not so common out there. Make sure it's relevant to
Speaker 2: the job that you are applying. Another pro tip, look
Speaker 2: at the job description and look at the keywords in
Speaker 2: the JD and try to incorporate some of the keywords
Speaker 2: in the JD into your resume. And this way, it
Speaker 2: is more likely to be picked up by the system
Speaker 2: in the first stage of automated
Speaker 2: screening.
Speaker 1: So should you copy and paste wholesale the keywords or
Speaker 1: you should try and
Speaker 1: I don't not plagiarize and use this copy and
Speaker 1: paste,
Speaker 2: you're missing something, you missed out the parts to write
Speaker 2: down your impact at work because JD is usually listing
Speaker 2: the responsibility to help execute this event, but you wouldn't
Speaker 2: say execute this event and achieve a certain impact. And
Speaker 2: the second part has to come from your experience. So
Speaker 1: resumes are already used at the beginning of the process, right?
Speaker 1: And the process starts with some form of screening and
Speaker 1: if if it's customized well like what Zong was telling us, then.
Speaker 1: Your resume has a higher chance of moving on to
Speaker 1: the next stages. So what happens after the resume has
Speaker 1: been picked up?
Speaker 2: Let's say. Then usually the recruiter would do a phone
Speaker 2: screening in today's age or maybe a video screening, which
Speaker 2: is now so common after COVID-19. Now after some sort
Speaker 2: of phone screening, usually we move into a physical interview
Speaker 2: where possible, though unfortunately, I've still seen companies sticking to
Speaker 2: just video interviews throughout the whole selection process. I think
Speaker 2: that's the ease of convenience and they also thought, oh,
Speaker 2: I don't want you to come all the way.
Speaker 2: Now candidates love it, right? You don't have to take
Speaker 2: a half day leave to go for an interview with
Speaker 2: Goldman Sachs. Then call me old school, but I feel
Speaker 2: when the candidate meet the interviewer in person, you get
Speaker 2: the chance to size him or her up to, is
Speaker 2: this someone that I want to work with or work
Speaker 2: for that you might not be able to tell so
Speaker 2: clearly over an interview, right? So 3 interviews, even physical
Speaker 2: one as a two-way courtship where you're evaluating the company.
Speaker 2: Don't just go to say I need this job badly,
Speaker 2: I need Goldman.
Speaker 2: to love me and hire me. I see.
Speaker 1: So I read that it takes a hiring manager on
Speaker 1: average 10 seconds to decide if the resume is in
Speaker 1: the accept pile or the reject stash. OK, what do
Speaker 1: you first look at? If I were to put eye
Speaker 1: tracking software into your eyes, which content takes the most
Speaker 1: of your eye time?
Speaker 2: I
Speaker 2: would say your last most two recent jobs and your
Speaker 2: time roll, but I want to qualify that first of all,
Speaker 2: it depends on
Speaker 2: The hiring company and the nature of the industry first.
Speaker 2: If you're a startup looking to hire, probably you wouldn't
Speaker 2: be so obsessed about the staying power of an individual,
Speaker 2: but rather you are more obsessed on has this person
Speaker 2: done 0 to 1 work, the ability to do something
Speaker 2: from scratch and to scale it up, versus if you
Speaker 2: are applying for a more traditional company, then the recruiter
Speaker 2: might value. Oh, did you spend 4 years in your
Speaker 2: last most recent gig and your last second most recent
Speaker 2: gig was it at least
Speaker 2: 3 years or so. So I wouldn't say this is
Speaker 2: what I look for, but depending on the nature of
Speaker 2: the industry, the recruiters may look at it this way.
Speaker 1: So they will still look at the first two jobs.
Speaker 1: It's just that maybe someone from a startup company might
Speaker 1: look at what you have achieved, whereas somebody who is
Speaker 1: in a bigger company, a legacy company value longevity. So
Speaker 1: they might be looking at the
Speaker 2: duration. the first page is usually your last gigs.
Speaker 1: Correct, but there's always the top part where you can
Speaker 1: write a short little bio of yourself.
Speaker 2: Personally, I don't think it is necessary, but if you
Speaker 2: still want to include, I recommend keeping it to 2
Speaker 2: to 3 sentences. Yeah, I've seen resumes where the personal
Speaker 2: bio was almost like 1/3 of the first page and
Speaker 2: all this personal bio is self-description of an individual, not
Speaker 2: substantiated by your achievement or impact at work, depending on
Speaker 2: the interview or the screener who picked up your resume.
Speaker 2: He or she may believe or may not believe in
Speaker 2: it rather than going into the qualitative details.
Speaker 1: I think Zong mentioned a very important principle which is
Speaker 1: you need to create a resume that is reader friendly,
Speaker 1: so you need to put yourself in the shoes of
Speaker 1: the reader.
Speaker 1: What are they looking for, what will appeal to them
Speaker 1: in terms of keywords, in terms of what's important information
Speaker 1: for them to see about you, so that it makes
Speaker 1: the whole reading, the whole 10 seconds more worthwhile. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: Now you talked about putting your contact details in the body. Now,
Speaker 1: what are the things are necessary to put inside the resume?
Speaker 2: I
Speaker 2: think one thing that I would personally recommend is start
Speaker 2: with the achievement that you have achieved in that company.
Speaker 2: When I was at Unilever, what was the top two.
Speaker 2: Achievement that I've done. So start with the achievement first,
Speaker 2: then followed by some of the tasks or the work
Speaker 2: that you have done in that gig. Yeah. This way
Speaker 2: your achievement steals the limelight and quickly seizes the attention
Speaker 2: very quickly. It catches
Speaker 2: your eye,
Speaker 1: right, because you put numbers inside there, right? Yeah, you
Speaker 1: qualify numbers and it's a very nice welcome distraction for
Speaker 1: your eyes. It gives your eyes, there could be some
Speaker 1: numbers peppered in there too if you just see a
Speaker 1: long essay, you feel like I don't want to.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, so when you put some nice words with
Speaker 1: not proper formatting, I think it sends the signals to
Speaker 1: the reader. What I'm getting so far from both of
Speaker 1: you is that it's a bit like storytelling, right? Writing
Speaker 1: a resume is storytelling, so it depends on who your
Speaker 1: reader is. If I'm applying for a managerial position, then
Speaker 1: you want to put straight up that you have led
Speaker 1: teams of what sizes, you have led them to achieve
Speaker 1: certain transformations
Speaker 2: that you can include in your 2 to 3.
Speaker 2: This is a summary if that is the intent. OK,
Speaker 1: what
Speaker 1: if though I am applying for a specialist role, but
Speaker 1: I don't want to put myself into a corner and
Speaker 1: say that this is what I'm good for. I want
Speaker 1: to open up the possibility of maybe down the road,
Speaker 1: you might want to consider me for a more managerial
Speaker 1: position because that means that I get promoted. What then
Speaker 1: should I focus in this
Speaker 2: resume? You must remember the three E's, your experience, your exposure,
Speaker 2: and your education.
Speaker 2: The experience part, keep it 1 to 2 pages at
Speaker 2: max I would feel that exposure, what are the things
Speaker 2: you do outside work, volunteering or even part of associations
Speaker 2: that you'll be very, be very active in, and then lastly,
Speaker 2: your education, keep it short, where did you graduate from, etc.
Speaker 2: And I, I think back to your point on, on,
Speaker 2: on that, your resume is supposed to land you an
Speaker 2: interview where possible. And once you land, if you land
Speaker 2: the interview, then use that conversation to highlight your career aspirations,
Speaker 2: how you may or may not want to be only
Speaker 2: a specialist, and then probe the company if they provide
Speaker 2: that option and opportunity and pathway for you to pursue. OK,
Speaker 1: but be very honest with me, how many recruiters actually
Speaker 1: look at the volunteering part?
Speaker 1: Honestly, I think that volunteering part is a nice to
Speaker 1: have and possibly people will put it in maybe if
Speaker 1: they are headed towards politics or they are headed towards,
Speaker 1: I don't know, like a director position or they want
Speaker 1: to join some association, then they want to try to
Speaker 1: put everything in, shore it up, right? But how many
Speaker 1: recruiters or hiring managers actually look at the volunteering part,
Speaker 1: the exposure part like you
Speaker 1: said.
Speaker 2: I think it has to go back to what are
Speaker 2: the companies that you're applying for, right? You want to
Speaker 2: work for a company.
Speaker 2: That has a good purpose. I believe that companies with
Speaker 2: purpose last, brands with purpose grow, and people with purpose strives.
Speaker 2: And when you look at a good recruiter, when you
Speaker 2: look at the resume and look at that volunteering part
Speaker 2: or the exposure part, you get a sense of what
Speaker 2: drives this individual, what is his purpose in life, and
Speaker 2: then see if there's a marriage between.
Speaker 2: His passion and what the company stands for,
Speaker 1: you know, this thing about what should I focus on
Speaker 1: in my resume, especially if today we have got a
Speaker 1: lot of good experiences and everything feels like it should
Speaker 1: be in there, right? I, I typically would advise us
Speaker 1: to take a look at, are you aware of this
Speaker 1: principle called the Gestalt?
Speaker 1: Principles. Basically, it's a set of rules or laws, right,
Speaker 1: principles that are developed to help people design better user experiences.
Speaker 1: It's meant to allow people to quickly understand complexity and
Speaker 1: make sense of complexity. So when I apply this the
Speaker 1: principles into resume, I treat the resume as a complex document, right?
Speaker 1: Just how our careers are actually very complex. We've got
Speaker 1: many different experiences, we do many different things across many
Speaker 1: different jobs.
Speaker 1: And how do we quickly design our resume according to
Speaker 1: this principles so that people can still see and make
Speaker 1: sense very quickly? Who am I? across all of all
Speaker 1: these experiences. So if I use a metaphor, right, like
Speaker 1: fish bone and the meat around the bone, we can
Speaker 1: look like that very fat fish with a lot of meat, right,
Speaker 1: and that's what we want to look like. But at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, if we strip away the meat,
Speaker 1: what's the bone that's there, the core, which is what Zhurong,
Speaker 1: I guess was also bringing up, right, that that.
Speaker 1: The essence of who you are, why are you doing
Speaker 1: what you are doing, the purpose of your career, there's
Speaker 1: a narrative, a storytelling like you said, right, that needs
Speaker 1: to come across. So how do we bring across this
Speaker 1: storytelling in our resume? We can design it according to
Speaker 1: Gor principles, and some of these people are like, for example,
Speaker 1: putting in content, words, experiences at different places so that
Speaker 1: it signals certain things about you. And also, of course,
Speaker 1: things like less is more, right, you don't have to
Speaker 1: put everything you put in the right thing so that
Speaker 1: people send the right signal to their mind.
Speaker 1: And of course, I think one of the things that
Speaker 1: I would advise people to do is to test. So
Speaker 1: take your resume, give it to 5 different people and
Speaker 1: ask them what do they think you're trying to say
Speaker 1: in your resume. So you want to give it to
Speaker 1: a range of people so that you can see that
Speaker 1: regardless of what
Speaker 1: Experiences they're reading from, how are they perceiving you? OK.
Speaker 1: What are some red flags in a resume that will
Speaker 1: make a recruiter like you toss
Speaker 2: it out? red flags. Maybe I will answer it not
Speaker 2: from my perspective but from how I know some recruiters, they,
Speaker 2: they have told me. I mean, I mean one of
Speaker 2: the very common ones would be, oh, there's gap years
Speaker 2: in between jobs and I'm really I'm really.
Speaker 2: Agains that though, and I feel very deeply passionate about
Speaker 2: this because in the 1980s, it is common for people
Speaker 2: to find a job and stay for 20 or 30 years.
Speaker 2: Whereas if you look at now, economic cycles are shorter,
Speaker 2: ups and downs are faster, layoffs are increasingly common, and
Speaker 2: I really believe layoffs may not be an issue with
Speaker 2: the individual. It's just because of the business needs and
Speaker 2: hence I urge recruiters do not see gap years as
Speaker 2: a red flag, but
Speaker 2: Normalize the gap periods, there could be people who took
Speaker 2: a gap period for house giving, caretaking, or really unfortunately
Speaker 2: went through a layoff, and I think it should be
Speaker 2: normalized and treated as common.
Speaker 2: And not using the same yardstick like the 1980s where
Speaker 2: we want a continuous period of employment for 35 years.
Speaker 2: I think those days is a little bit
Speaker 2: over.
Speaker 1: What about if you are reading the resume and you're
Speaker 1: very confused because this person, everything is just like a
Speaker 1: jumble jumble of
Speaker 1: stuff.
Speaker 2: If you're working in a startup.
Speaker 2: In a very cutthroat or hardcore industry, then maybe such
Speaker 2: a profile will be fascinating because you want innovation, creativity,
Speaker 2: and not be bounded by the traditional boundaries. So a
Speaker 2: good recruiter knows the company well to know how to
Speaker 2: hunt or look at recipes that may be suitable. Now,
Speaker 1: when recruiters read resumes, because we're all humans, right?
Speaker 1: I'm sure they're bound to be subjective biases. OK. So
Speaker 1: it could be maybe if you put an address in there,
Speaker 1: here in Singapore it's very obvious like which district you
Speaker 1: live in. Yeah, you live in District 9, District 10 people,
Speaker 1: people automatically like it or not infer certain things right
Speaker 1: about you. So how can we work around them knowing
Speaker 1: that the person who's going to be reading my resume.
Speaker 1: Might already infer some things about me.
Speaker 2: So first of all, some tips you as a candidate,
Speaker 2: then we should not over include certain information like address,
Speaker 2: I don't think it is necessary. So some people may
Speaker 2: not realize you don't even really need to put the
Speaker 2: year of when you graduate from your school. You can
Speaker 2: graduate from the National University of Singapore or MIT, but
Speaker 2: you don't have to say 2007.
Speaker 1: OK.
Speaker 1: But then do you put your secondary school, your junior college,
Speaker 1: your poly, that kind of stuff, because people can again
Speaker 1: in Singapore infer the route that you took and then
Speaker 1: extrapolate and say oh maybe you come from a certain SES,
Speaker 1: social economic
Speaker 1: strata,
Speaker 2: and it's very true in resumes. I would see people
Speaker 2: putting secondary school when they come from the usual, the
Speaker 2: branded schools I mean.
Speaker 2: At least not in the recruiters that I've met and
Speaker 2: also as a HR professional, I've never let a secondary school,
Speaker 2: a branded one influence if I was shortlisted you or not.
Speaker 2: I mean, not really.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it adds that little food for thought
Speaker 1: signal that affirms certain perceptions, but when it comes to
Speaker 1: really selecting, you're still going back to the experiences, the achievements,
Speaker 1: what you have done, I think those are more tangible
Speaker 1: things that recruiters would.
Speaker 1: Look out for there was a situation where someone was
Speaker 1: applying for a job in Jurong and they're staying in
Speaker 1: Pasir Ris. and then I think the recruiter.
Speaker 1: Just discounted the resume saying that this person might be
Speaker 1: late for work or not.
Speaker 2: But what if this person has BTO flat near Boon,
Speaker 1: or drives like a BMW. I was taking a ride
Speaker 1: with a family car every day towards the west side.
Speaker 1: You cannot assume these things.
Speaker 1: Exactly, exactly. And then the other one is, of course, photographs, photographs, right?
Speaker 1: Some people say you must put, for example, if you're
Speaker 1: applying for certain kinds of jobs, you should put a photograph,
Speaker 1: but I think by and large, if there's no need to,
Speaker 1: my own personal opinion is you shouldn't put because photographs
Speaker 1: are highly subjective. You could be too good looking.
Speaker 1: You could be not up to someone's expectations and then
Speaker 1: you wasted that 10 seconds because the person's mind is
Speaker 1: on the photograph instead of reading the other things. But
Speaker 1: at which point can I inject my own personality into
Speaker 1: the resume? Because I've read resumes where I can sense
Speaker 1: this person is fun, like there's a cheeky tone to it.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's in the 1st 2 or 3 sentences, but
Speaker 1: how much is too much.
Speaker 2: I've seen resumes in my career where they started putting
Speaker 2: Each competency 4 out of 5 stars, and then they
Speaker 2: color their stars. So it looks so visual and it's
Speaker 2: very pretty, but the truth is, the ATS system is
Speaker 2: not going to be able to capture the stars that
Speaker 2: you colored in yellow, the 4 out of 5 for communication,
Speaker 2: the 5 out of 5 for empathy, and the 3
Speaker 2: out of 5 for investment intelligence.
Speaker 1: I totally agree with that. I always advise people don't
Speaker 1: bother putting that because the reader cannot validate.
Speaker 1: That rating that you give yourself, we always like, I
Speaker 1: like to give myself 5 popcorn. 5 stars all the
Speaker 1: way right? because we Asians, we tend to downplay, OK,
Speaker 1: we give 1 or 25 and 3 and then some 4s,
Speaker 1: it's very arbitrary,
Speaker 2: but it looks very pretty though. I mean it is
Speaker 2: very pretty, but
Speaker 2: Maybe it is suitable for the advertising industry. I'm not sure.
Speaker 2: I'm stereotyping here, but
Speaker 1: yeah, but who knows, I think, I think those are charts, right,
Speaker 1: and they usually come in one pages, one page resumes, right?
Speaker 1: I think those are really good if today you are
Speaker 1: out for networking. Yeah, if you're out for networking and
Speaker 1: you're meeting somebody for the first time.
Speaker 1: And maybe finding out a little bit about the job,
Speaker 1: do you have something on hand to show me and
Speaker 1: you straight away produce that out. And then very quickly
Speaker 1: at a glance, you can see that and it doesn't
Speaker 1: become that arbitrary anymore because they have had a conversation
Speaker 1: with you. Well, I think today you really, really gave
Speaker 1: us so many tips, so many hacks. I mean, I
Speaker 1: for one will be
Speaker 1: Looking through my resume, not because I am job hunting,
Speaker 1: but I think it helps to consistently look at it
Speaker 1: so that when you really need it, you don't have
Speaker 1: to do this major overhaul. So thank you so much
Speaker 1: for your time and your expert advice. Thank you for
Speaker 1: having me. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to our Ask Me Anything segment where Gerald
Speaker 1: and I take on a work-related question that you have
Speaker 1: sent to us. Now today's question was sent in by
Speaker 1: a listener who I'll call Xavier. He says he's in
Speaker 1: his twenties and has just resigned from a job. Now,
Speaker 1: initially he thought he was not the right person for
Speaker 1: the job.
Speaker 1: After stating his intention to leave, and he told his manager,
Speaker 1: the interactions were a bit disappointing. Now, it sounded like
Speaker 1: Xavier was not sure whether he was set up for
Speaker 1: success in the first place. OK, let me give you
Speaker 1: an example of what he said. I knew that I
Speaker 1: was the first official hire for the position, but I
Speaker 1: was also saddened to hear from my manager that they
Speaker 1: knew from the start that
Speaker 1: Having a less experienced individual like myself was not going
Speaker 1: to work out and that the higher ups wanted someone
Speaker 1: like myself on board because I was much less experienced
Speaker 1: and therefore would not command as high a salary. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so Xavier is now searching for jobs, OK, and he
Speaker 1: wonders if he should disclose what he went through in
Speaker 1: his next job interview.
Speaker 1: If asked for his reasons for leaving, should he say
Speaker 1: what he went through? Will it hurt his chances of
Speaker 1: getting a job? Wow. So sounds like there's actually a
Speaker 1: few things happening here, right? The first one is, of course,
Speaker 1: Xavier and his feelings about how he has departed from
Speaker 1: the last job, and this has a lot to do
Speaker 1: with how he feels that
Speaker 1: He was set up for failure, right? I think it's
Speaker 1: probably quite confusing for Xavier because when you get into
Speaker 1: a job first and then you thought that you're the
Speaker 1: best person hired, and in Xavier's case, he probably thought
Speaker 1: there was a case and then when things didn't work
Speaker 1: out and he wanted to resign and the boss told him, uh,
Speaker 1: actually we kind of know that you're going to fail. Yeah,
Speaker 1: can you imagine.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and and then we only got you in because
Speaker 1: you know you were cheaper. OK, OK, so I can
Speaker 1: imagine Xavier and we can imagine how it's very confusing
Speaker 1: for him, right? And this definitely would um dent his
Speaker 1: confidence for the future job interviews, especially if he has
Speaker 1: to ask, he has to tell people like why he
Speaker 1: he wanted to resign without a job. Yeah, yeah. So
Speaker 1: I think this being a very confusing time for Xavier.
Speaker 1: Xavier would probably need to
Speaker 1: Find some closure or some way of thinking or reframing
Speaker 1: this situation so that it doesn't get carried forward to
Speaker 1: the future. I think there can be a lot of resentment,
Speaker 1: a lot of disappointment, help with the previous job, and
Speaker 1: this can actually easily show in the next job. During
Speaker 1: the interview when employers, the HR, they are sniffing for
Speaker 1: anything that is not.
Speaker 1: Proper, they were probe a little bit more, a little
Speaker 1: bit more, and then it gets out. So Xavier has
Speaker 1: to really come to terms with this situation first. If
Speaker 1: you were in Xavier's suit, what would you do? Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know what, it's true, the psychological part is going
Speaker 1: to be very difficult, but also at the same time, OK,
Speaker 1: I'm a very half glass full kind of person.
Speaker 1: So I think the first thing I would do after
Speaker 1: I have licked my wounds and tell myself it's not me,
Speaker 1: it's them. Yeah. I think that's not me, it's them.
Speaker 1: I think it would be to also see that actually,
Speaker 1: even if I was the only person for that role,
Speaker 1: even though less experienced, cheap, but you know what, there
Speaker 1: must be something in me that the employer found that
Speaker 1: I was hireable. Otherwise they could have just kept the
Speaker 1: position open.
Speaker 1: So maybe I will need to reflect back on all
Speaker 1: the things that I've done and ask myself, what is
Speaker 1: it that I can bring to the next job role?
Speaker 1: Are there transferable skills? Are there things that I would
Speaker 1: consider my strength? You brought up a really important point, right,
Speaker 1: that it's it's them, not you.
Speaker 1: And you were picked for the job as the best
Speaker 1: possible hire at that price at that point of time.
Speaker 1: So I think these are positives, the silver linings that
Speaker 1: Xavier can take along with him. I think Xavier has
Speaker 1: to remember that he was doing a job that was
Speaker 1: scoped to a higher level, more experienced. He was trusted
Speaker 1: with kind of responsibility.
Speaker 1: And this is something that Xaia can probably take forward
Speaker 1: to the next employer to share that, you know what,
Speaker 1: I was doing a job that was for someone that
Speaker 1: was a lot more experienced. I learned a lot from it.
Speaker 1: I realized that I needed to find something else. Yeah
Speaker 1: and I can take on more. I have proven that
Speaker 1: I can take on more, so that's why I'm applying
Speaker 1: for this job. I also like to think that from
Speaker 1: Xavier's perspective, why would the boss tell Xavier, you know, this,
Speaker 1: that is such a low.
Speaker 1: Whether is it low move or is it could it
Speaker 1: be because they actually have quite an open relationship like
Speaker 1: like good communication, they trust each other to say the
Speaker 1: boss Xavier, could be that the supervisor really said that
Speaker 1: to maybe make Xavier feel that it's not you, it's
Speaker 1: actually us. We did a mistake, so I'm I'm trying
Speaker 1: to do something good by telling you that, but of
Speaker 1: course it has that the other unintended effect on Xavier,
Speaker 1: which is why why Xavier wrote in.
Speaker 1: So I do think that open communication could be something
Speaker 1: that's also of a silver lining to show that you
Speaker 1: know what those things didn't work out, you still could
Speaker 1: get along with the people in your company. Well, Xavier,
Speaker 1: I I hope that your situation becomes better and both
Speaker 1: of us are really sorry that you were put in
Speaker 1: this position, but like we have been talking about here,
Speaker 1: I think there are silver linings in this situation.
Speaker 1: You can use some of these as you approach your
Speaker 1: next job interview. Don't let this one setback affect you.
Speaker 1: So if like Xavier, you have a work-related question, do
Speaker 1: write into us. We are at CNA podcasts at Mediacorp.com.sg.
Speaker 1: We're also on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, me, Listen, and YouTube
Speaker 1: where a video
Speaker 1: Version of this is at. The team behind the Work
Speaker 1: It podcast is Janaini Johari, Joanne Chan, Saya Win, Alison Jenner,
Speaker 1: Shahzad Dalilia and Christina Robert. Video by Hanida Amin. I'm
Speaker 1: Gerald and I'm Tiffany. Have a great work week ahead
Speaker 1: and don't let anybody tell you you are not good enough.